interview series – Jamila Starwater

An inspired interview with painter Jodi Fuchs

*Blessed B(e) 76″ x 138″ mixed media on canvas 2011 © Jodi Fuchs*

Jodi Fuchs is my favorite painter alive today. The energy and scale of her work (she paints BIG), the living colors, and the inspired motifs and patterns all resonate with me so much. Her work has a vibration that changes the room it’s in. Some day I will have a Jodi Fuchs original on my wall but until then I’m super stoked to have her work featured on my blog!

Jodi is also a super fun, down to earth, beautiful human being that I’m so lucky to call a friend. We got to know each other over the years in Harijiwan’s living room when he used to teach out of his home in those pre RAMA days of yore. Then maybe 4 years ago we teamed up and produced a holiday art/craft show at her pop up gallery in Santa Monica. It was so fun working with her and my cousin Ashley Wade (of Action Cookies fame!) on the event and we learned a lot .. but never again! Amiright ladies!? So much work you would not believe.. But anyhow, all that to say is we got to know each other pretty well through the experience and I just love her to bits! I’m super excited to share this interview I did with her recently. Hopefully you’ll be inspired by her work and words as much as I am.

Fierce 31″ x 62″ mixed media on canvas 2011

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1. There is so much I love about your work its hard to know where to begin! I guess I’ll start by asking about how you first got in to painting? Did you always want to be an artist?

Thanks so much for having me and for your kind words! I’ve always had a creative impulse even though I didn’t study art in school. My education was a never ending series of strange creative jobs– working for photographer’s hand-tinting photographs, as a production assistant on several tv shows, assisting graphic designers on rock star’s tour books, etc. I took some evening classes at Otis Parsons for graphic design but felt like the surface areas were too small for me. I like BIG. I then moved onto classes for faux finishing after working as a set painter on movies and got some great painting gigs. The first was working with a team of artists that marbleized an entire shopping mall in Vegas. That skill set lead to working on high end homes where I learned all about the decorative arts and enjoyed creating environments. The house was the canvas. Then after 20 years of physically challenging work, climbing ladders and painting ceilings, I decided to focus more fully on making my own paintings.

2. Did you go to art school and how did going/not going influence you as an artist?

No, I didn’t go to art school and in a way I’m glad. I learned all about color and color mixing while doing decorative painting and painting sets. I read tons of artist’s biographies and really resonated with the abstract expressionists in NY during the 40’s and 50’s. Sometimes I wish I had more formal training but I also think not going has freed me up to play the art “game” in a different way. I was always interested in the healing arts and studied massage, energy healing, feng shui and kundalini yoga. I think as an artist, “school” can be anything that captures your imagination.

3. I love how your work is so infused by your energy and inspired by your love of meditation and travel. Can you talk a little bit about what your process is when you are creating?

Ah, the great mystery of creating. I tend to follow my intuition and stay out of over conceptualizing my approach. Basically, when I’m faced with a blank canvas, I start with color, anything to get the white out. I’m into mark making and gestures and letting the energy of where I am that day lead the way. Traveling informs color choices and sometimes content as does the meditation. I’m often drawn to sacred imagery but really it comes down to energy. I just want to be a conduit for the creative energy force of the Universe. I think it’s infinite, always available and it’s really about how clear a channel I can be to let that come through me. I don’t paint if I’m in a bad or weird mood. I just do admin stuff instead. lol

4. You were recently in Hawaii and Bali for a while. Can you tell about some of the inspiration and insights you gained while there and how that has effected your work?

The feminine energy of both Hawaii and Bali were so healing to be in and as a painter, I think it’s really important to be in that feminine receptive state of mind. I swam a LOT, many times with wild dolphins which is my passion, and as a result, the work I did in Hawaii was very watery and fluid. I didn’t intend for that to happen but it did and that’s what I love about painting and traveling. It’s a new way to see the world and as an artist I’m creating new little worlds on the canvas so it’s really a perfect marriage.

5. Your prayer paintings are so powerful and fun — can you tell us about them and some of the experiences you have had creating them for yourself and others?!

One day I started making a painting by writing down my heart’s desires on the canvas. Then I filled in the loops of the letters and the negative spaces with color, pretty much obliterating what I’d scribbled, but I loved the result. Even though the words were indecipherable, I knew the energy was still there. I showed the piece to my art publisher and she went to press with it! The Secret Language of Prayers was the name of the piece. I loved that my prayers were now being broadcast to thousands! Talk about getting the word out! I decided to offer this service of creating custom prayer pieces for people and it’s been so rewarding. I’ve done memorial pieces, house blessings, health prayers and lots of marriage paintings where I weave the vows of the bride and groom together. I was even a live painter at a wedding once and wrote the vows on the canvas as the couple recited them. AND it was on a boat.

6. I love that you are doing design consultations for living and working environments now — canyou tell us about it and all the modalities you are weaving into the practice?

Well I’ve studied feng shui with several different teachers as well as Space Clearing techniques in Bali. I love color and I understand energy flow so it just felt like a great melding of all the skills I have to help people create supportive environments in their home or office. I’m offering color consultations, decorative painting, staging, feng shui cures and space clearing to begin with. Even rearranging pieces that you already have can be effective in “upping” the wattage of your space, as well as balancing the 5 elements with objects and color.

7. If you could paint on any surface in any location in any size – on the whole planet – where would you and why?!

I’d love to paint an elephant. Have you seen the decorated elephants of India? Amazing! I’ve ridden elephants a few times in Bali and I just adore them. Talk about a large canvas! It’s also pretty cool that elephants make paintings. I saw demonstrations of this at the park in Bali. The elephants were given paintbrushes loaded with paint and they used their trunks to create a piece. Mesmerizing. And pretty good abstract pieces!

8.What’s cooking for 2014? Let us know about upcoming shows/ travels/ projects ..

2014 for me is about creating a solid body of work as well expanding into products. I’d like to keep creating images for my 2 art publishers and also get my work into more galleries. I’m also applying for some grants so I can continue to travel and paint as well as looking into international artist residencies. San Miguel de Allende is on my radar. It’s a wonderful art town in Mexico and I’ve wanted to go there forever. I have my annual open studio at the Santa Monica Airport art walk coming up on Saturday March 15, 2014. I’m also looking into creating a line of tshirts and contemplating some products I can co-produce with some Balinese artisans. So, just a few things. I also started an art blog, finally, and am excited to write and share my work this way. I’d like to eventually create a book to inspire people to create!

Thank you so much Jodi!

Check out more of Jodi Fuchs’ work online at www.jodifuchs.com

Buy prints and original pieces on her etsy shop

Connect with Jodi Fuchs on twitter + facebook and her new blog The Painters POV

Heart Chambers 18″ x 18″ mixed media on panel

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above un captioned images from the top:

Jodi Fuchs in her Santa Monica studio

Living the Dream 12″ x 12″ mixed media

Prayer Painting : Kelly and Chad wedding ring inscriptions 48″ x 36″

FOOD

The Amrit: My Mom’s Vegetarian Restaurant

Anne Eichelberger serving lunch at the Amrit, 1976

My mom, Anne Eichelberger Tazewell, opened the first vegetarian restaurant in Norfolk ,Virginia in 1976 with 3 friends when she was 21 years old. She is an amazing cook and I had always heard about these times when I was growing up – the story was a foundational legend of our family. Anne’s first experience working in a natural foods kitchen was at The Golden Temple Conscious Cookery in Washington DC. She also did kundalini yoga at the 3HO ashram there! She never talked about kundalini yoga while I was growing up but I think it is so cool that she did it before I was even born. Another interesting thread is in the very name she chose for the restaurant– the word amrit has a deep meaning within the kundalini / Sikh path as well.

I am so excited to feature an interview I did with her about the experience of running a vegetarian natural foods cafe in 1970’s Virginia. One of my dreams is to follow in her footsteps and open a conscious vegetarian restaurant some day. This is the first in a series of interviews I am doing with all kinds of inspirational people I know and want to know. For so many reasons, my mom’s story of the Amrit is the most fitting way I can think of to kick things off.

Article from the Virginia Pilot – Click to image to enlarge

Can you tell me what you remember about your first job working at the Golden Temple restaurant in Washington DC? What year was it and what did you do there? How did you get the job?

It wasn’t a job, I actually was a volunteer in the restaurant’s kitchen. I am thinking it must have been the summer of 11th, maybe 12th grade so 1971 or 2. I found out about the Golden Temple restaurant from the kundalini yoga classes I was taking nearby. The restaurant was on Connecticut Ave, near Dupont Circle. The yoga classes were in a house near Dupont that was an ashram.

Are there any dishes you remember specifically from the Golden Temple?

What I remember is the lemon tahini salad dressing. The Golden Temple is where I learned how to make this dressing, which went on to be one of the most popular items at my own restaurant, the Amrit. The other delicious thing I remember are the the lassi drinks- lemon juice, yogurt and honey smoothies. We called them Krishna shakes at the Amrit. Maybe that’s what they called them at the Golden Temple.

When did you decide you wanted to open your own natural foods restaurant? Can you tell us a bit about your inspiration for the name ?

I decided that I wanted to open a natural foods restaurant when my boyfriend Bill and I were in CA for at a month long retreat with Swami Muktananda at Humboldt State University. The idea struck me sitting at the small cafe at Muktananda’s ashram in Oakland. The ashram’s cafe was called the Amrit, ‘nectar of the Gods’. That’s where the inspiration for the name of our restaurant came from. This was the summer of 1975

The Amrit crew – from left to right, Vernon Herbert, my mom Anne Tazewell, Molly, Janice Herbert, Suzie Meredith Boykin and Bill Boykin

How long did you plan it and how much money did you have to invest?

Friends of Bill’s from NYC- Janice and Vernon- were married by Baba at the retreat. They wanted to join us in starting the restaurant so after the retreat we went our respective ways for a few months. Then in Spring 1976 we had opened the Amrit in Norfolk, VA, in a old building that had sat vacant for a few years. For decades the brick building on the corner of Princess Anne Rd and Colley Ave had been Master’s Drug Store, the place where your grandfather and father went for ice cream cones. Your grandfather lived right next door to Master’s when he was growing up and your Dad went to the soda fountain after his piano lessons. Of course I didn’t know any of that at the time.

Each of the 4 partners invested $2,500. We split the rent for the building with the Norfolk Food Coop who had renovated 1/2 the space, moving out of the basement of a nearby house to join us.

How long did it take to turn a profit?

Not sure what you mean by profit. We did not take out any loans to open the business and lived very simply. For a time your dad and I actually lived upstairs at the restaurant in what must have been originally a store room. The ” profit” is what we paid ourselves and as I recall it could vary from week to week. Some months it was pretty slim.

Article from the Virginia Pilot – Click to image to enlarge

What was the most challenging things about running the Amrit?

Personnel problems! Vernon ended up giving his partnership ( 1/4 share) to Stew, a recovering alcoholic, who had started with us as a dishwasher. This was OK until Stew fell off the wagon and I would get to the restaurant in the morning to prep for lunch and Stew would be passed out on the floor. The other vivid but troubling memory was another homeless guy (we offered free meals to homeless folks) – an older man who looked just like Baba’s guru – Nityananda. Sometimes we had ” Nityananda” do dishes for us and one day I walked in him to find him drinking the salad dressing from the gallon container in the kitchen that we stored in in.

What were the best parts about the experience?

The best part was meeting your dad. The Amrit had a policy of giving free food to musicians. He, as you know, is a musician and offered us an upright piano that we put in the dining area for different musicians to play in exchange for a free meal and tips. The rest is, as they say, history. I also loved bringing a few friends in after a late night out dancing and raiding the kitchen for left overs. We also had a few great parties at the restaurant with the Winged Heart band, the group your dad was playing in with your “Uncles” Steve Pague and Quint Lange. The Amrit was the the hub of a community. I met my closest, lifelong friends at the Amrit. One was Gazelle, Quint’s then girlfriend, your Godmother, the midwife that delivered you and also married you.

(left to right, click image to enlarge) Amrit ‘after hours’ – Anne and my dad’s cousin Tom Gardner // Amrit musician Woody Allen, employee Brian Rayner, and partner Bill Boykin

Do you have any specific memories of what it was like to introduce people to natural, vegetarian foods in the early 70s !?

I loved our customers, especially people that I didn’t expect would know about or like natural foods. Customers like Navy men, office secretaries, auctioneers and attorneys. All different kinds of people were interested and curious about what we were doing at the Amrit.

What were your favorite dishes on the menu?

I loved the Toastie and Eggplant Parmigiana. I also really loved the ice cream we sold. It was honey goats milk ice cream that we got in amazing flavors in 3 gallon tubs. Of course the Eichelberger (our veggie burger) was also a favorite. It was renamed the Tazberger when we got married.

Do you have any advice for wannabe natural foods restauranteurs? Like me for example?!

Know your partners really well! Start simple, build a following and then expand as demand grows.

Also be a good manager- have a good team you trust and then delegate so that you don’t burn out.

I would love to talk with you about this further… You and Jai Gopal would make excellent restaurant owners

YES! Great advice. Thanks so much Mom!

The Amrit Menu handwritten by my mom – check out those prices!!

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